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Through A Glass, Darkly
(Possibly, Footprints in the Sand)Out of the blue and into the black.
"N…?"
She couldn’t breathe. It was dark, horribly dark. Cold too. And she couldn’t breathe.
"Hhhhh…"
She guessed she was hallucinating because she thought she could see Nope reaching out to her, only, get this, he had a halo like some kind of saint, wasn’t that silly? And Vesper wondered why her life wasn’t flashing before her eyes because that’s what happens when you die, right? And then the universe receded, compressing itself into a tiny point of intense white light and she wondered if they’d paid for the drinks back at pond, somehow so long ago now, and if she’d had the breath she would have laughed at the inanity of that, the last thought of her existence and then...
...she found she could breathe again.
Slowly the universe filtered back. She could feel arms around her and air, sharp, static filled air against her face. It was still dark though, so she tried opening her eyes, blinking through the silver flecks that clouded her vision. Nope was peering down at her, expression unreadable behind the shimmering field and the dark glasses.
"You okay?" he asked. "Almost lost you for a second there."
"What? Where? What?" Vesper paused, took a deep breath and tried to think of a coherent question to ask. After a moment she shrugged, gave up and resorted to raising her hands and saying "Huh?"
"We’re in a cave of some sort. The atmosphere is incredibly thin -- that’s why it’s so cold. Here," Nope said, pinning what appeared to be a small silver broach to her top. "That silver sparkle around us? It’s basically an air bubble; gets refreshed by this unit. Prototype only, unfortunately, so I figure we’ve only got about eighteen minutes to either find a portal out of here or a good approximation to breathable air."
"Umm, Nope?" said Vesper.
"Yes?"
"You can let go of me now."
"Oh." Nope dropped his arms. "Sorry." She was amused to see a faint blush momentarily colour his cheeks. "I think we go this way."
* * *
The flashlights gave out after a couple of minutes but by then there was enough light leaking down from the entrance for them to see anyway. A short steep climb later, they found themselves outside and on a gentle slope overlooking a wide valley. The planet’s surface was covered with rocks and crags beneath a thin layer of powdered stone. There were no lights or outstanding features for as far as the eye could see; a short distance away, the land flattened out into a flat, blasted plain.
"Desolate hell-hole," muttered Nope, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, sending up puffs of dust.
"Are we still on Earth?" asked Vesper. "What’s with the stars?"
Nope looked up into the dark void, filled with fixed, motionless pinpricks of light. "No atmosphere in the way," he explained. "No twinkle."
"Oh. It makes them look very cold. Hard too, like hundreds of diamonds." Vesper looked around. "Which way, do you think?"
Nope shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Umm, okay. We’ll go --" eeny, meeny, miney, moe "-- this way." She began down the slope, slipping and sliding, the bubble field sparking and shimmering as it filtered out the dust. Nope followed after her, taking a more cautious path down, muttering something under his breath.
"What did you say?" called back Vesper. Even in the air-bubble field her voice sounded thin and distant.
"A speck of dust can change creation." Nope shrugged. "Just something I read once."
Vesper paused on the flat, staring up into the inky sky. "That’s odd."
"What is?" asked Nope, sliding to a halt beside her.
"That star." She pointed. "It’s so much brighter than all the others. Lower too."
"Pole star, maybe?" Nope continued past her, heading out into the plain. Vesper remained motionless, head tilted back to watch the sky. Nope, glancing back and realising she hadn’t moved, hurried back.
"Need I remind you we’re running out of air?" he asked.
"I don’t think it is natural," she said. The seeming non-sequester threw Nope somewhat and, while he was thinking of something to say she added: "Do you have a telescope or something?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah," admitted Nope somewhat absent-mindedly, pulling a pair of field glasses from his backpack and handing them over. "Try these." A thought, a half formed memory, nagged in the back of his mind. There was something about the world, something he couldn’t quite grasp, something familiar.
"Looks like some kind of Monitor’s Satellite," commented Vesper.
"Yeah, I can just see that," muttered Nope. "Grendel, the Monitor of a dead Earth. How touching."
"You really think Joe Grendel is up there?" asked Vesper.
"Sure, why not?" said Nope. "He’s probably watching us right now." He waved at the sky. "Aloha, mister benevolent Monitor Grendel, sir. Just us poor ants, scurrying around down here, nothing to worry yourself about."
Vesper gave him a scathing look. Nope ignored it, walking back into the plain and amusing himself by carefully stepping into his previous footprints.
"Hey, I think there’s something -- some kind of building," exclaimed Vesper, still peering through the field glasses. "Over there."
Nope peered in the same direction, frowning. "I don’t see -- Oh. Looks abandoned."
"First sign of life we’ve seen," said Vesper cheerfully. "I’m sure it’ll be of some help."
* * *
"‘I’m sure it’ll be of some help,’" mimicked Nope. "No one’s been in here for years by the looks of it."
Vesper trailed a finger through the dust in silent agreement. "I wonder what happened here. Nuclear war. Natural disaster." She added a couple of eyes to complete the smiling face. "Just think, billions of people, all gone now." Shivering suddenly, she ran a hand through the dust, wiping the face away.
"Actually," said Nope, more to himself than to her, "it looks like these controls are still powered. Must be a generator somewhere."
"So, now what?" asked Vesper. "Hit buttons at random?"
"It’s always good for a laugh." Nope studied the panel before him, glancing from it to the raised dais and back again. "Hey, remember that satellite we saw? Wanna take a closer look?"
"Huh? How?"
"If I’m reading this right, these control some sort of teleport system," explained Nope, running his fingers lightly over the tops of the keys. "Not too sure of the controls. Line of sight shouldn’t be overly difficult, though."
"‘Not too sure of the controls’?" Vesper looked panicky. "It’s not dangerous, is it?"
"Dangerous? Naah." Nope fiddled with the panel for a moment. "Of course," he admitted as he reached out to grab her wrist and pulled her onto the platform, "if I’ve got this wrong we could end up reappearing in the vacuum of space." He grinned. "Ready?"
"Nnnaaaao--"
* * *
"--ooohh." Vesper gasped staggering as space unfolded around them in a burst of light, squeezing the two companions out into mid-air above the cold, hard gleaming metal of the satellite floor. Nope landed ass first, falling backwards and swearing loudly as his head bounced off the table with a hollow clang.
"Language," giggled Vesper.
"Pardon my French," snarled Nope, rubbing at the back of his head. "It’s all right for you, you always seem to get the soft option."
Vesper had fallen into a chair, a somewhat safer and more comfortable landing.
"I don’t know whether the spots in front of my eyes are the shields or concussion," he groaned. "Next time I go d-hopping, I’m bringing cushions. Where are we?"
"Some kind of meeting room," said Vesper. "I think it’s for the Pantheon. Look, these chairs have markings on the back." She reached across, turning one of the chairs to face Nope. It had a faintly glowing green oval on its high back. "This has to be Green Lantern’s chair."
"Maybe," said Nope. Alarm bells were starting to ring in the back of his head, but he had no idea why. The chair Vesper had landed in, picked out by a single pin spotlight mounted above the centre of the large brushed steel table, was the largest in the circle of seats, clearly in a position of prominence.
The Chair’s Chair, thought Nope and directly after that felt a cold chill run down his spine. "Come on," he said. "Let’s get out of here."
He helped Vesper to her feet and headed towards the nearest exit. Vesper had to half run to keep up with Nope’s agitated strides. The corridor curved somewhat and Nope had a nasty feeling that they would have gone full circle before it let up. The fear was unfounded.
"Sleeping quarters," exclaimed Vesper, sitting down on the bed.
"Austere," noted Nope. "Not exactly full of home comforts, is it."
"At least everything isn’t covered with dust." Vesper reached out to touch a diagram lying on the table, clapping her hands in delight as it projected a holographic blue-print of the station into the air. There was a bottle of whiskey resting on the table next to it, warm and half empty. A glass rested beside it. Nope lifted it up to the light, peering through it. A thin meniscus of amber liquid covered the bottom of the tumbler.
"This is not good," announced Nope. "Not good at all."
"You can say that again."
Vesper and Nope spun. The man stepped from the shadows, dressed in a black jump-suit with a thin purple pinstripe running up his right side. Cold eyes appraised them from beneath the freshly shaven skull. He held a sword in loose grip, out from his side, the light splitting across the blade’s unnaturally sharp edge.
Vesper gasped "Joe Grendel?!"
"Nemesis," snarled Nope. "I remember you."
"Really? Do tell." Grendel casually swung his sword one-handed, the point resting against Nope’s neck. "You can start with what you’re doing here. I suppose the rest of the Pantheon are behind you?"
"Umm, no, actually they’ve--" began Vesper.
"Ready and waiting--" began Nope. He broke off, flashing a sideways glare at his companion.
Grendel looked from one to the other. "Don’t tell me you’re on your own."
"Okay, we won’t," quipped Nope.
"We were just looking for Grendel," explained Vesper, "well, not you but our Grendel I mean, and Amazon said not to but we--"
"Vesper!" snapped Nope.
Grendel started laughing.
"I don’t see what’s so googin’ funny," snarled Nope.
The laughter tapered off slowly. Finally, Grendel asked "Now what am I supposed to do with the two of you?"
"Umm, let us leave, quietly and peacefully?" suggested Vesper.
"I don’t think so," said Grendel.
Nope raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think you can stop us?"
"What makes you think I can’t?" sneered Grendel.
"Apparently you can match any power, " said Nope, grimly. Nemesis nodded a sarcastic acknowledgement. Nope grinned. "What happens if they aren’t using one?"
His hand swung in a blurred half circle, turning Nemesis’ sword point away with the edge of his Soul knife. Grendel matched the grin and kicked him in the stomach.
"..." managed Nope, as he doubled over, breath knocked out of him. He barely dodged the follow through to his face, rolling back to his feet with his teeth clenched, eyes blazing behind the dark shades.
Vesper picked the whiskey bottle off the table, weighing it in her hands.
"Look, kid," began Grendel. Nope ignored him, feinting sideways and then striking, the knife somehow changing hands in mid blow. With almost brutal ease, Grendel blocked the blow; a casual twist on the follow through knocked the knife from Nope’s grasp.
With an apologetic grimace, Vesper swung the bottle at Grendel’s head as if it was a baseball bat. Joe turned at the last moment, ducking slightly. The bottle whipped past his scalp and the momentum spun Vesper around. Grendel added a carefully timed shove, knocking the bottle from her hand and sending her falling into Nope as he moved to attack again, knocking them both to the ground.
The bottle landed on the table, wobbled slightly then settled upright.
Nope rolled aside, hand closing around the fallen knife’s handle. Grendel stamped a boot onto Nope’s wrist before he could lift it, Grendel’s sword point waving vaguely at his opponent’s throat. "Uh uh, sparky. Now, let’s--"
"Just," panted Nope, "just one more thing." He clenched his fist, tapping it against the floor.
"Oh?" Grendel raised an eyebrow.
A gold aura swept around Nope and Vesper as the second tap activated the d-portal ring. "Nope go bye-bye," he grinned. The gold light folded in on itself and, between the blink of an eye, they were gone.
Grendel stared after them a moment, trying to follow the random shift of the portal, giving up as the ebb and flow of dimensional tides started to make him dizzy. A quiet beeping reminded him of the time, and he took a slug from the bottle before carefully sealing it for later.
"We’ll meet again," sang Joe to himself, wandering towards the meeting room and the chair, his chair with the crossed gun and sword on its back. "Who knows where, who knows when..." The song dissolved into quiet, ironic laughter, then silence as he entered the other room.
Below him, the darkened world continued to turn.